6.1.- 19th century fashion: the importance of mourning

In March 1861, Victoria’s mother died, with Victoria at her side. By the beginning of December, Prince Albert was diagnosed with typhoid fever and died on 14 December 1861. Victoria was devastated. She entered a state of mourning and wore black for the remainder of her life. Queen Victoria avoided public appearances and rarely set foot in London in the following years. Her seclusion earned her the name ‘widow of Windsor’.

Queen Victoria was the model for upper and middle-class behavior during 19th century. This meant that there was social pressure to make grief public. Then a man, as breadwinner, had to get on with life and resume his working uniform; for this reason, the woman, guardian of the home, tradition and all that was sacred, was expected to act out the family’s sorrow and wear its livery.

As we explained in this blog post entitled ‘Ornamental hair jewelry’, a Victorian woman could spend a great deal of her life wearing black:

Did you know that jewelers across England and Europe produced a kind of ‘secondary jewelry’ in order to satisfy the overwhelming demand for inexpensive adornment that arose during Queen Victoria reign (1837-1901)? And did you know that this trend was mainly inspired by the queen’s own liking for jewelry?

This secondary jewelry included all types of modern and wearable pieces of symbolic shapes (anchors, crosses, hands, hearts, horseshoes, stars, etc.) made of the more unsuspected materials: aluminium, iron, hair, papier-mache and even silver.

Many of Decimononic’s pieces have been inspired by this kind of jewelry and we look forward to following this path with you.